up to scorn and derision. A deep vein of moral earnestness runs through all the writings of Peary Chund Mitter, and he takes the opportunity to interweave with the incidents of his story disquisitions on virtue and vice, truthfulness and deceit, charity and niggardliness, hypocrisy and straightforwardness. Not only general vices, such as drinking and debauchery, but particular customs, such as a kulin marrying a dozen wives and living at their expense, are condemned in no measured terms. The book is written in a plain colloquial style, which, combined with a quiet humour, procured for it a considerable degree of popularity. Towards the latter end of his life Peary Chund Mitter gave up novel-writing and wrote several pamphlets on religious subjects and short memoirs of eminent men, of which the "Life of David Hare" (first written in English and then translated into Bengali) is best known.
"Durgesa-Nandini" was the first novel written by Bunkim Chandra Chatterji.
